I really love quilting smaller items. I get the thrill of starting a new project and the satisfaction of completing a project without a lot of work in between! This latest quilt is a great example of just that.

When the Modern Quilt Guild asked me to quilt the banner for their exhibit at Quilt Market, of course I said yes. It’s a small panel, which made it a pretty quick project. The panel was printed out through spoonflower and is one solid piece of fabric, although it looks as though it was pieced.

Since I knew it would be hanging a lot, I decided to use two layers of batting. Doing so helps keep it nice and stiff, and also helps the letter “pop” up just a little bit.

To help the letters pop out even more, I quilted really dense designs. I love the way it looks, but I couldn’t imagine doing this over a whole quilt!!

Here’s a picture to help give you a sense of how small the swirls are!

Do you want to know a quilting tip? If you want your quilting to look great, use matching thread and quilt really, really small. This is the same swirl design that I always do, but quilting it so tiny makes it look so much better. It’s not harder, just a lot more time consuming.

Part of the panel looked like piecing, so I quilted it just as I would have quilted a “real” quilt.

I would never quilt a larger, regular quilt like this….I don’t think that I would have the patience. But going all out on a smaller project is so fun and fulfilling!!